A damning analysis of George Osborne’s spending plans found he will have to save another £25billion after the election

Another crippling round of cuts is looming, experts warned today – as the Chancellor hinted at future tax hikes.

A damning analysis of George Osborne’s spending plans found he will have to save another £25billion after the election, on top of the £11.5billion cuts announced on Wednesday.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies said if the Chancellor continues trying to balance the books with 80% cuts and 20% tax rises, he will need to slash spending by another £19billion and raise taxes by £6billion after 2015.

The think tank’s chief Paul Johnson said: “There are still another £25billion worth of cuts pencilled in for the two years after 2015-16. That is tough indeed.”

He said the most likely way to raise the money was a 1p rise in VAT.

The findings came as Mr Osborne refused to rule out further tax rises after the election.

He said “I’ve never in the seven or eight years I’ve been Shadow Chancellor and Chancellor made clear guarantees about taxes because that’s a very silly thing.”

There was also grim news for public sector workers as the IFS warned job losses could hit one million by 2018. It also predicted more NHS cuts, with the headcount reduced by up to 80,000.

Mr Osborne was also slammed for the “woeful” lack of documentation supp-orting his spending plans.

Mr Johnson said: “Publishing such a small amount of information with so little explanation is not an exercise in open government.”

The Chancellor was also lampooned by his own team, when the Cabinet’s Eric Pickles mocked him for eating a £10 burger.

Mr Osborne, ridiculed for tweeting a photo of himself with the posh meal, had labelled the roly-poly Communities Secretary “a model of lean government” during his spending review statement. So Mr Pickles posed with a salad.

There was some good news for the Chancellor, when revised Office for National Statistics figures showed there was no double dip recession last year.